Novelist Maggie Shipstead on Being Lost in India

Novelist Maggie Shipstead remembers the rickshaw drivers who wanted to relieve her of a few rupees—but also helped her find her way

I SPENT MY 22nd birthday lost in New Delhi. My friend Elizabeth and I were traveling together for the summer. We had parted ways in Mumbai so I could visit my then-boyfriend, who was doing research on Tibetan medicine in the Himalayan foothills. From there, I planned to take an overnight bus to New Delhi and meet back up with Elizabeth at a hotel we'd picked from our budget-travel guidebook. (It was 2005, and we didn't have phones that worked abroad.) We'd find somewhere to celebrate my birthday with cocktails and the ultimate luxury in a country where the water isn't safe to drink: trustworthy ice.

Yann Kebbi

The bus arrived in Delhi early in the morning, and I disembarked into the quiet streets, leaning forward under a backpack the dimensions and weight of an Easter Island head. Through the 13-hour journey, Bollywood movies had played full blast, punctuated at irregular intervals by the bus's horn. A family in the back row had eaten a large picnic dinner during the first hour and then, sickened by the ride on twisty, potholed mountain roads, vomited it onto the floor, where it had sluiced back and forth all night. I was not well rested.

A few early-bird auto-rickshaw drivers were hanging around; I approached one who looked friendly and gave him the name of the hotel. He adopted a grave expression. "Madam, I am sorry, but there is rioting in that part of the city. The roads are all closed. Don't worry—I will take you to a different, safer hotel."

This is the textbook opening gambit among rickshaw drivers negotiating with tourists, and, really, it's a smart one: Offer an unlikely but not entirely implausible scenario (rioting) that plays to common fears about developing countries; the customer's reaction will provide a useful baseline of gullibility. If all goes according to plan, convince the customer to stay at a hotel owned by a friend or relative, overcharge for the ride and collect a commission on the room. The ploy might offend American sensibilities, but in India it's just part of the general hustle.

"I'm meeting my friend," I said, trying to project the air of a seasoned traveler, pretty sure no one was rioting at six in the morning. "I need to go to that particular hotel."

"There are fires," he warned.

Together we looked up at the blue, smoke-free sky. Birds chirped.

With an air of coming clean, he said, "OK, madam, that hotel has been turned into a school."

I sighed. "Will you please just take me there?"

He shrugged—it's your funeral, madam—and gestured me into the back seat. After 15 minutes of careening around the city, dodging cows and cars and sleepy merchants pushing carts, we came to a handsome school on a circular plaza. "You see?" he said. "It is a school."

I was unconvinced. Yes, this was a school, but how was I supposed to know if it had once been our hotel?

"Where do you want to go now?" the driver said.

I didn't know, so I paid him and got out, wandering off down a narrow street. Before long, I set my backpack down against a wall and sat on it. I wanted to email Elizabeth, but no Internet cafes were open yet.

“
'I'm meeting my friend,' I said, trying to project the air of a seasoned traveler.
”

Within minutes, a boy of about 14 in pressed jeans materialized beside me. "Madam, do you need help?"

"No," I said. "I'm just lost."

He worked for a travel agent, he said, and if I went with him, I could have breakfast. He said the magic words: There is Internet. Figuring I'd only attract more and more attention if I stayed where I was, I agreed.

The office was a narrow, windowless place with posters of beaches and Paris taped to cinder-block walls. The travel agent sent the boy out for eggs and toast, poured me chai, let me check my email. Nothing from Elizabeth. He steepled his fingers. "I think," he said, "you need a nice holiday on a houseboat in Kashmir."

"Really?" I said, trying to sound polite but noncommittal.

"Yes!" Delighted with this brainstorm, he retrieved a binder fat with laminated photos. "It is very nice," he said. "Very safe now. You will have a beautiful time."

"The problem is," I said, studying the boats, "my friend and I are supposed to meet at a hotel in Delhi."

"Which hotel?"

I told him.

He waved a hand. "Oh, that was turned into a school."

After an hour spent discussing houseboats and civil unrest in Kashmir ("No, no, no! Now it is very safe") and another email check, we reached a compromise. I would rent a room in a hotel he owned (laminated photos were produced) and go there to rest, as I was, inarguably, very tired.

He ushered me down the street to where a driver was waiting in a black Ambassador and bundled me into the back seat with my pack. He stuck his business card through the window. "Tonight I'll come by, and we will talk more about Kashmir," he said.

To my surprise and consternation, I was driven out of the city. The dense buildings trickled away and became fields, empty lots. After some time, we came to a house that stood alone, half of it covered in scaffolding. The front door was open. Inside, a boy sat on the floor cutting cabbages in half with a machete. There were no other guests. I would not have a key because this boy's job (in addition to the cabbages) was to let me in and out. I went to my room and lay down on the bed. A moment later, the power went out.

I'll pause here to say that this isn't a story about something terrible happening to me in India. Really it's a story about strangers being nice, a series of men who wanted to relieve me of a few rupees but who also helped me when I was vulnerable.

The power came back on. I walked down the road to a cluster of shops where there was an Internet cafe with a pay phone. I called my mother. "Happy birthday!" she said.

"I don't know where I am," I said, quavering. "I'm in some house somewhere, and I can't find Elizabeth. And there's this guy cutting up cabbages, and I don't want to go to Kashmir."

"What can I do?" she said.

"Nothing," I said, truthfully, sorry for having worried her.

The power went out again. It came back on. I checked my email. Nothing. I went back to the house and took a nap. I went out again. Finally, an email from Elizabeth.

Hey, our hotel got turned into a school!

She gave the address of a different hotel. It was across the street from a crematorium, she said, but wasn't bad at all. Let's go get drinks with ice! I fled the house and the cabbages and all future conversations about Kashmir and found a rickshaw driver near the Internet cafe. When, slyly, he said the roads were closed, I laughed like he'd told my favorite joke.

Maggie Shipstead

—Ms. Shipstead's second novel, "Astonish Me," was published this month.